Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Dukes v. Wal-Mart Cert. Petition
Wal-Mart has just filed a cert. petition with the U.S. Supreme Court in Dukes v. Wal-Mart. As we've been reporting on frequently (there's too many posts to link to, but you can search for "Dukes" to the right of this post for the full lineup), this is the largest employment discrimination case in history, covering over 1.5 million current and former women employees. Recently, the Ninth Circuit, in a 6-5 en banc decision, affirmed certification of this class of plaintiffs, and that certification is the issue being raised before the Supreme Court. Only if this certification stands will the discrimination issues be resolved.
My prediction? The Supreme Court will grant cert. and reverse the Ninth Circuit. There's a solid five justices who have repeatedly shown that they really don't like big plaintiff classes or employment discrimination cases in general. So this one seems like a natural for reversal.
-JH
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/2010/08/dukes-v-walmart-cert-petition.html
Comments
I’m not very familiar with the Dukes vs. Walmart Cert. Petition. I’m just afraid that the issue might affect or impact the beneficiaries of the Walmart Scholarship. I hope not because I know how helpful scholarships are for many students. With regard to discrimination, I also don’t get its main point. I’ve heard so many stories about discrimination and it is something that somehow breaks my heart. In connection, I believe that students who are striving hard for education should never be discriminated. I just hope that everything between the two parties gets better in time.
Posted by: Al de Leon | Sep 16, 2010 8:34:06 PM
Another possible outcome is that, off-line, the parties finally settle . . . as Wal-Mart done often enough in other class or collective action cases. If the Supreme Court busts up the case, there will be no vehicle for settling the case on a class-wide basis and it will atomize into many smaller cases.
Moreover, I've always found remarkable and ironic that Wal-Mart had no problem with big Rule 23(b)(3) class actions when it was wearing the plaintiff's hat. In re Visa Check/MasterMoney Antitrust Litigation, 280 F.3d 124 (2d Cir. 2001) (SOTOMAYOR, J.).
Posted by: Paul Mollica | Aug 25, 2010 2:32:14 PM